Top Pick Discussion

Normal PGA Tour Fantasy rules allow you to stack your team with favourites but who wants that! I allow just one!

Hideki, Spieth and Rahm are your obvious Fantasy Top Picks but I'll pick Rickie Fowler as my one and only favourite after a solo 2nd in 2016 and T4 here last year.

Picks 2,3,4

Pick 2: Webb Simpson

Webb Simpson loves Phoenix and he's one of the few players to thrive on both the original course and Tom Weiskopf redesign. Three top-10's from 2011 to 2014 were followed with a T14 in 2016 and solo second in 2017 when Hideki beat him in a playoff. Webb got a rotten hop and snookered himself behind the bunker after bravely attempting to drive the 17th green on their fourth playoff hole.

Pick 3: JB Holmes

I recall in early 2016 JB went on a run of T6 at The Farmers, T6 here in Phoenix and then T11 at Pebble and he's in that form again right now which is why he has to be on your betslip this week. Great performance at Torrey Pines last week and his solo 4th was as much down to a field leading putting performance as powerful driving. The T6 in 2016 started with a 73 and I'm hoping that the transition from the wind in San Diego will be smoother this time.

Pick 4: Byeong Hun An

After a T40 warm up in Abu Dhabi Ben went T6 last week at the Dubai Desert Classic. Granted it was a birdie-fest but An averaged 312 yards from the tee, T15 in driving accuracy and T9 in greens hit. That should serve as a nice warm up for another tilt at Phoenix where he led after 54 holes on his debut last year (66, 66, 65) before a final round of 73 slipped him to sixth. Tiredness and jetlag have to be a consideration though on that massive trans Arabia-Africa-Atlantic-America flight across.

Bench

Pick 1: Daniel Berger

I need someone on a mission for Phoenix in my list this week and think Daniel Berger might be a good fit. T11 at the Tourney of Champions and T14 at the Sony was a decent start to 2018 and Berger will be determined to score a big finish on a course he knows he can putt well on. T10 and T7 in 2015 and 2017 respectively. He has been out of the top-10 of a leaderboard for far too long.

Pick 2: Zach Johnson

Let us down last time but Zach is a great fit for Phoenix. He only really came back to this event in 2015 following the redesign and has been top-15 in each of his three visits up to last season. He's also on a run of five straight top-25 finishes and on a course like this where over exuberance sometimes overtakes logic and forces errors, it's good to have a straight thinker like Zach.

Shorlisted

Harris English

Steady progression of form with a T11 at the Career Builder and a T8 at the Farmers and Harris English sandwiched a solo third here in 2016 in between two also rans (T57, T40) since the redesign.

Brendan Steele

Steele is one of those for who it all went Pete Tong after the Scottsdale facelift (three top-6 finishes 2012-2014) but he's still done no worse than T26 in his last three starts here. Winner already in the "2018" season at the Safeway, he hasn't finished worse than T29 in four events since.

Martin Laird, Billy Horschel and John Huh all are worth keeping an eye on. Laird is a course specialist, Huh drives it great here and with Billy Ho you never know!

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